Chairman of the Petitions Committee European Parliament: Stop the torture of Polish women

Why this is important

It is with great sadness that we,
citizens of Poland, Europe and the World, must inform you that the Polish government, led by rightwing extremist has passed for further reading a legislatory project to completely ban abortion. This has been done despite the public opinion being in favor of alleviating the current Act and only 14% supporting the new project.

If accepted, this act will deny abortion to victims of rape, paedophilia and incest, as well as to the women whose foetus is irreversably damaged and/or is a threat to the mother's life. Furthermore, the ban will penalise forced miscarriage, making each and every single woman and a doctor a suspect. Doctors will therefore refuse prenatal testing for a
legitimate fear of being prosecuted.

In recent years we have witnessed a substantial raise of power of the Polish catholic church, which continues to enforce misinformation and harmful stereotypes about
abortion.

In 2008 a pregnant 14-year-old from Lublin was terrorised by pro-life organisations when the priest working in the hospital she was admitted to gave away her private mobile number to extremists.

A year ago, prof. Bogdan Chazan refused to give legal abortion to a patient, whose foetus was irreversably
damaged and had no chance of survival (above else it had an open skull with its brain leaking and its eyes outside of its head). Furthermore, he refused to redirect the patient to another person who could give the mother the treatment she deserved and blocked her treatment until the abortion was no longer legal. The mother gave birth to a baby who died after 2 weeks of extreme suffering. The rightwing extremists made prof. Chazan a hero.

Most recently, a 12-year-old girl gave birth to a child of a 29-year-old man. The prosecutor's office does not treat it as rape.

These are just the more widely known examples of terror enforced onto women in Poland, where the vast
majority of abortions are executed on the black market. Now in XXI century, women's torture will become even more widely accepted, with instances of personal tragedies, lifes ruined and death covered under the blanket of hateful beliefs.

We, the citizens of the World urge you to take a stand against this matter and stop the Polish government from further working on this hateful act. From all the countries of the European Union only Poland and Ireland have such harsh abortion laws, and we believe making it more strict will be nothing but a giant set back, an act of loathing against not only women, but also men who wish their partners, mothers and daughters to be treated with respect. We believe that since our voice is ignored by Polish politicians, we can't stand inactive until our whole lives are governed by disdain and hate, and need to ask you for urgent help.

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